U.S. Senator, U.S. Congressman. He is recognized as an American conservative politician, serving for more than 31 years as a Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate from Massachusetts, as well as a historian and prolific author. Descended from two prestigious Boston families, the Cabots and Lodges, he attended private schools and graduated from Harvard University in 1871. While at Harvard Law School, he was assistant editor of the "North American Review" from 1873 to 1876, graduated in 1874, and was admitted to the Massachusetts Bar in 1875. Lodge earned one of the first Ph.D. degrees in history and government from Harvard University in 1876 and then joined the Harvard faculty to become a lecturer on American history from 1876 to 1879. Entering politics, he was elected a member of the Massachusetts State House of Representatives from 1880 to 1881. He authored some historical works, as well as biographies for the widely read "American Statesmen Series" of his great-grandfather George Cabot in 1877, Alexander Hamilton in 1882, Daniel Webster in 1883, and George Washington in 1889, and edited an edition of the works of Hamilton in 9 vol. in 1885. Lodge was an unsuccessful Republican candidate in 1882 for election to the Forty-eighth Congress and in 1884 to the Forty-ninth Congress. He was finally elected as a Republican representative to the Fiftieth, Fifty-first, and Fifty-second Congresses and served from March 4, 1887, until March 3, 1893, when he resigned. He had been reelected to the Fifty-third Congress, resigning to be elected as a Republican to the United States Senate in 1893. Armed with all the confidence that his distinguished New England ancestry, Harvard education, and wide circle of influential friends could bestow, he quickly became a power in the Senate and in the Republican Party. Independently wealthy as the heir to a shipping fortune and not seeking for campaign contributions, he was noted for his scorn of the alliance between big business and corrupt politicians. Close friends with Theodore Roosevelt, he supported the Spanish American War in 1898, and favored the acquisition of the Philippines and the development of a strong army and navy. A conservative party-line Republican, he supported the gold standard and a high protective tariff. He was reelected to the Senate in 1899, 1905, 1911, 1916, and 1922, serving in the Senate from March 4, 1893, until his death. In the Senate, he served in a host of leadership positions: Republican Conference chairman from 1918 to 1924; president pro tempore from 1911 to 1913; Committee on Immigration for Fifty-fourth through Sixty-second Congresses; Committee on Printing for the Fifty-fifth Congress; Committee on the Philippines for Fifty-sixth through Sixty-first Congresses; Committee on Private Land Claims for Sixty-third through Sixty-fifth Congresses; Committee on Foreign Relations for Sixty-sixth through Sixty-eighth Congresses; Republican Conference from 1918 to 1924; appointed by President Theodore Roosevelt as a member of the Alaskan Boundary Tribunal in 1903; and member of the United States Immigration Commission 1907-1910. He was the overseer of Harvard University from 1911 until his death and represented the United States as a member of the Conference on Limitation of Armament in 1921. He did not support immigration. In the aftermath of World War I, he was a bitter opponent of Democratic President Wilson's peace policy, and, as chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, opposed United States ratification of the Treaty of Versailles and entry into the League of Nations unless specified and highly limiting reservations were made to protect U.S. interests. He was noted for his sharp-tongued debates on the subject. He maintained that membership in the world peacekeeping organization would threaten the sovereignty of the United States by binding the nation to international commitments it would not or could not keep. In the end, Lodge's opposition derailed the ratification of the treaty, which destroyed Wilson's goal of a strong U.S. role in the post-war League of Nations. Thus ironically, having supported a larger role for the U.S. in world affairs early in his career, Lodge ended up being best remembered for spearheading Senate blockage of American membership in the League of Nations. Lodge, who had done so much to prepare his country for international leadership, ultimately came to be regarded as an isolationist. He later opposed U.S. entry into the World Court. In 1920 he was one of the group of Senators who brought about Warren G. Harding's 1920 Republican nomination for President in the legendary compromised of the "smoke-filled back room." He married Anna Cabot Mills Davis on June 19, 1871, and the couple had a daughter and two sons. His grandson and namesake, Henry Cabot Lodge II., would become an American politician in the mid-20th century, serving as United States Senator from Massachusetts as well as other posts.